Respect The Dead & Protect The Living: Kill Tilikum The Killer Whale

Unless you’re a nut, like the people at PETA, people come before animals. And when we’re talking about an ORCA that has turned into a serial killer, it needs to be put down or at least released in the wild:

A SeaWorld Orlando animal trainer died Wednesday from “multiple traumatic injuries and drowning” after a killer whale pulled her underwater by her long ponytail near the theme park’s Shamu Stadium, authorities said Thursday.

Dawn Brancheau, 40, was “interacting” with the killer whale in knee-deep water “when the animal grabbed her by the hair, said to be in a long ponytail, and pulled her underwater,” according to a statement from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

“Rescuers were not able to immediately jump in and render assistance” to Brancheau because of the orca’s “aggressive nature.”

Meanwhile, an official at SeaWorld Orlando said that the killer whale, named Tilikum, is being evaluated, but that the theme park will keep the 12,000-pound dominant male.

Tilikum pulled Brancheau into his tank about 2 p.m. Wednesday. The attack — the third human death linked to the killer whale since 1991 — made international news.

…In 1999, park officials found the naked body of Daniel Dukes lying across Tilikum’s back at SeaWorld Orlando. Dukes apparently had sneaked into SeaWorld after hours to swim with the animals.

SeaWorld acquired Tilikum after another fatal incident. In 1991, Tilikum and two female killer whales dragged trainer Keltie Byrne underwater, drowning her in front of spectators at Sealand of the Pacific, a now-defunct aquarium in British Columbia, Canada.

I love my dog, but if it actually killed someone, I wouldn’t think twice about having it put down. In this case, there are now 3 dead human beings associated with this Orca. The first two were a little iffy, but in the last case, the animal just snuffed her out — which makes you really wonder about the previous two cases.

I know, “It’s an animal, John. It just doesn’t understand what it’s doing.” That may be, but we’re humans, and we can understand that this thing is killing people and it needs to be stopped. Ideally, they would terminate the thing. If they don’t have the heart to do that, they should at least release it in the wild where it can’t hurt anyone else and if it can’t survive because of its years in captivity, well — good.

The bottom line is that there are human beings that are dead because of this creature and out of respect for them and to insure the safety of other people, this killer whale should be put down.